" award tribulation to those who trouble you ; but to you, who are troubled, restf."
Let us consider,
I. The truth that is here suggested —
To enter into the full meaning of this awful truth, we must distinctly notice its two leading parts :
1. Death is at hand, to carry us before our Judge —
[This is an undoubted truth. The experience of every day attests it. Death lurks within us; and finds, in the dis- ordered state of our bodies, ten thousand means of accomplish- ing our destruction. He lies in ambush, too, in every thing around us. There is not any thing which may not prove an instrument in his hands to bring us down. Nor is it by dis- ease or accident alone that he can effect his purpose. In instances without number he inflicts the fatal stroke, without so much as employing any visible or acknowledged agent. If only he receive his commission from God, he is able to work either by means or without means. It need only be said, " This night shall thy soul be required of thee ;" and with irresistible power he executes the decree ; and transmits us, prepared or unprepared, into the immediate presence of our God.]
2. Our Judge is at hand, to pronounce our de- served doom —
[He is not afar off, that he must be sought after : nor is he so occupied with the cases of others, as not to be at liberty to consider ours. The instant we are brought before him, he is ready to pronounce his sentence. Of this, the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is a striking illustration. " All is naked and open before him," at one view ; and in one instant of time he can so present every thing before our minds, that we also may discern the equity of his sentence. If at night we wished to see a variety of objects, we must take a light, and view them in succession, one at a time : but if the sun be risen upon the earth, we can see ten thousand objects at once. Thus can the Judge of quick and dead, in one instant of time, present to our view the records of our whole life, to serve as a foundation of the sentence that he shall pass upon us. Some notion of this we may form from the account given us of the Samaritan woman. She had had some conversation with our Lord, who had made known to her one particular circumstance of her life : and with such power was that particular truth
f 2 Thess. i. 6, 7.